State Senate approves minimum-wage bill

Published 9:51 pm, Thursday, May 23, 2013

HARTFORD -- The Democrat-dominated state Senate on Thursday night pushed through a hike in the current $8.25 per-hour minimum wage to $9 by Jan. 1, 2015.

The proposal heads to the House, where last year similar legislation was approved before failing in the Senate.

The 21-15 vote, after a 2 1/2-hour debate, broke along party lines, but Sen. Joan Hartley, D-Waterbury, sided with Republicans opposed.

Republicans complained it would increase the cost of doing business and could put more strain on a state economy still slowed by 8 percent unemployment. Democrats said the high cost of living keeps the lowest paid in poverty and that any increase in pay is immediately spent in their neighborhoods.

Under the legislation, a 45-cent increase would occur next Jan. 1, followed by a 30-cent hike on Jan. 1, 2015. That would represent the first rise in four years.

Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said that the increase "is a modest one at best." He said in his city, many adults are trying to raise families with minimum-wage jobs.

"It is an extraordinarily painful struggle to try to live responsibly, to work at minimum wage," he said.

An estimated 106,000 of the lowest-paid workers would be affected. Minimum-wage employees making $17,160 a year would see their pay increase to $18,720 by the time of the second phase. The poverty line for an adult with two children is $19,530.

"It's not a coincidence that states that have large surpluses and their unemployment is going down did not enact the largest tax increase in their history." McKinney said.

Sen. Rob Kane, R-Watertown, said the majority of those affected workers are teenagers who want summer or after-school jobs.

Kane offered an amendment that would exempt seasonal workers from the legislation, to help amusement parks, small businesses, landscapers and farms. It failed.

"I really believe strongly that the market will determine what a job is worth," said Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, whose father, an Italian immigrant with a fifth-grade education, worked a variety of jobs as she grew up.